Posts Tagged ‘Matt Carufel’

I don’t know about you, but it feels like the middle of the season to me: Fall Break and the bye week are behind us, the complexion of the schedule has changed dramatically, and we’ve hit what can only be described as rock bottom after the Loss that Shall Not Be Discussed. So it’s in this spirit that the Irish Roundup brings you “Taking Stock,” a three-part series (wow, doesn’t that sound fancy?) evaluating the 2007 season up to this point and looking ahead to its remainder.

Up first, a detailed evaluation of why the Notre Dame offense has been so dreadful this year. We all know the statistics, so I’m not even going to bother listing them again: the question I’m going focus on here is “Why?” rather than “How bad?” Here are what I - with the invaluable help of the rest of the IrishEnvy crew - take to be the nineteen biggest problems, in inverse order of importance:

19) Too much hype: No doubt Charlie Weis did the right thing by refusing to throw his players under the bus by calling 2007 a “rebuilding” year, but did we all have to believe him? Nearly all ND fans had the Irish winning at least three of these first eight games – a clearly unreasonable expectation. The team’s current 1-7 record would be completely satisfactory if they’d played hard, scrappy football and shown improvement from week to week, but the burden of everyone’s high hopes can’t have been a help in making that happen.

18) Scheduling: A calendar front-loaded with top-notch opponents, with all of the easy games at the end of the year. Four of the first six games played on the road. A bye week after USC (though having extra time to prepare for Navy never hurts). No doubt it’s difficult to put together ND’s schedule, but this year’s version was just atrocious.

17) Recruiting: Many are going to wonder why this isn’t higher on the list. The reason for that is that the talent gap between the Irish and their opponents doesn’t even begin to account for the awfulness of their offensive (ha!) game. No doubt the paucity of upperclass talent feeds into many of the more serious problems in a major way, but in itself it’s only the tip of a very large iceberg.

16) Too much shuffling of the depth chart: I’ve already been over this in some detail, and I still stand by the analysis I gave there, namely that while many of these shifts have been due to injuries or other unpredictable things, some – in particular taking so long to settle on James Aldridge as the #1 tailback, and even then giving too many carries to other players – were clearly mistakes.

15) Distractions: The obvious example of this is Demetrius Jones not showing up for the team bus to Michigan, after which the Irish played what was clearly their worst, and least-inspired, game of the season. But there have been other cases as well, such as Derrell Hand’s arrest, the ongoing quarterback controversy, the departures of Konrad Reuland and Matt Carufel, the rumors of dissension among Irish players, and so on. These are not the sorts of things that help a young team get over their struggles.

14) Penalties: Obviously there are some – Mike Turkovich’s touchdown-negating hold against BC, for one – that stick in the forefront of your mind, but the fact is that false starts, holding calls, and other offensive penalties have been a huge problem all year long, regularly putting the offense in a position where it has to pick up huge yardage to move the chains. Thankfully there were far fewer such mistakes against USC, so maybe that’s the beginning of a trend.

13) Injuries: Aldridge, David Grimes, Matt Romine, and Dan Wenger have all missed significant time with injuries, and Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate have been banged up as well. For a team as thin as this one is, having front-line players like these get injured is obviously a big problem, and keeps the squad from developing a consistent rhythm.

12) Play-calling: Once again, this is a factor that a lot of people are going to want to put a lot higher, though see my lengthy post from after the BC game for why I thought that in that case at least, this issue was WAY overblown. There’s no doubt, though, that there have been some huge mistakes made in this department: the obvious examples are the crazy schemes employed at the starts of the games against Georgia Tech and Michigan, though there are others as well. This team has to do more than just develop its “bread and butter” plays in practice; it has to run them on the field as well. Of course, that’s hard to do when players consistently fail to execute the plays you’ve called.

11) Inexperience: You could try to lump this in with recruiting, but it’s really a different issue, since it’s meant to pick out the fact that many of even the more “veteran” players – Turkovich, Paul Duncan, Evan Sharpley – saw very little playing time before this year, and so aren’t able to do as much as one would hope to bring the younger players along. I’ve been told that last year, Bob Morton and the other offensive linemen were telling Sam Young what to do on almost every play – this year, there’s only one lineman with more than one year of experience other his belt.

10) A rift within the team itself: I’m putting this right in the middle of the list only because I obviously don’t know if the various rumors that have swirled around are true. But the fact is that there have been some pretty clear signs – both on the field and off – that this squad hasn’t really come together well. Some of this is natural, as younger players and veterans compete for playing time, but if it’s as bad as some have said it is, then its ramifications may be extensive indeed.

9) Lack of leadership: This isn’t just about the veterans; underclassmen can be leaders as well. Some of this is the result of the “musical chairs” that has been played with the depth chart, whether due to injuries, poor personnel decisions, or surprising performances by players (whether of the good variety or the bad). No matter what the cause, though, not having players who can bring everyone together in the huddle or on the sidelines and focus their energies on the task at hand is going to be a huge problem for any team.

8) Failure to execute the “finesse” plays: What I have in mind here are the dropped passes or missed receivers that we’ve seen so often this year. In countless cases, a player has been open and either the ball has gotten there and he’s failed to catch it, or the ball has been thrown over his head or at his feet. Mistakes like this stall an offense like nothing else, except perhaps for …

7, 6) Poor pass- and run-blocking: I can’t figure out which of these to put first, since each feeds into the other in countless ways. But it’s important to emphasize that the problems here haven’t just been with the offensive line: whether it’s tailbacks whiffing or getting run over on pass protection, fullbacks failing to open up holes in the running game, or wide receivers missing blocks downfield, there’s no getting around the fact that the blocking on this team has been atrocious at every level.

5) Lousy position coaching: When you have a team composed almost solely of either young players recently out of high school and “veterans” who’ve barely played a down, what you need is a group of assistant coaches able to teach them the proverbial fundamentals. So far this year, there’s been little evidence that that’s happened, and the lack of week-to-week progress suggests significant deficiencies in the sort of training these players are receiving.

4) Practice routines: The influence that having had contact-free practices for so much of the season and pre-season has had on this team probably can’t be overstated: once again, many of these players are new to college football, and they just don’t know what real “game speed” looks (and feels) like. But there have been other problems as well: to give just one example, there is no doubt that the decision to develop overly creative plays rather than taking a “building-blocks” approach did a great deal to set this team back and prevent real progress in the early weeks.

3) Tentative play: The USC game was a paradigm of the tendency among offensive players to look like they’re more concerned with avoiding mistakes than with doing something right. Whether it’s the overly-complicated character of the offense they’re running, the shock of game speed, the burden of high expectations and the consequent fear of criticism, or whatever, there’s no doubt that many of this offense’s failures – dropped passes, missed blocks, inability to hit holes in the running game, and so on – can be attributed to an all-around tentativeness.

2) The “snowball” effect: With the exception of the post-halftime spurts against Purdue and BC, one steady tendency for this team has been that when things go bad, they get worse. The offense has shown very little resiliency, whether to their own mistakes or to those of the defense and special teams, and we’ve often seen the proverbial wheels fall off at the first sign of difficulty (the Michigan State game was the paradigm instance of this). Once again, this can be traced to many of the other problems above, but it’s clearly a place where this team’s many defects have often come to a head.

1) Charlie Weis: Sorry coach, but the buck stops with you. I’m going to have more to say about this in a post tomorrow, but for now just let me say that I think Weis has done a simply terrible job coaching this squad, and while I don’t think this one season is sufficient to show that he’s the “worst coach in the universe,” I also don’t think that the old “learning curve” excuse is good enough. In my mind, there’s reason to think that Weis is a good-to-great coach for seasoned veterans, and an outright terrible one for young players. If this is right, then the key question is whether he can transition this group from the latter category to the former without doing irreparable harm to them – I’ll have much more to say about this tomorrow and Thursday in Parts II and III of this series.

One thing that has been partly a symptom but also to some extent a likely cause of Notre Dame’s struggles this year is the way the lineup has shifted around from week to week. As I’ve discussed in some detail (see here and here), each of the last two weeks has seen major changes to the Irish depth chart, and when we compare the chart from the current week from the one at the start of the season (helpfully summarized here by Ben Ford), we find a remarkable number of changes:

At only three offensive positions (tight end (with the exception of Konrad Reuland’s departure), “Z” wide receiver (with the exception of Barry Gallup dropping off the chart), and fullback) and four defensive ones (defensive end (with the exception of Derrell Hand’s return from his suspension), “Mike” linebacker, free safety, and right cornerback (with the exception of Munir Prince catching up to Raeshon McNeil)) is the depth chart the same at mid-season as it was at the start.

Six players (Duval Kamara, Eric Olsen, Robby Parris, Evan Sharpley, James Aldridge (who is low on the depth chart this week only because of injury), and Kerry Neal) currently listed as starters weren’t starters or even co-starters at the beginning of the season, and two other current starters (Sam Young and Paul Duncan) have switched positions. (Sharpley was of course officially listed as a co-starter, but only as a smokescreen.)

A total of eight players (Young, Taylor Dever, Thomas Bemenderfer, Dan Wenger, Olsen, Brian Smith, Anthony Vernaglia, Morrice Richardson) are listed as having switched positions. (Though note that most of those switches, with the exception of Vernaglia’s, are relatively minor, and simply involve being on the other side of the offensive line or linebacking corp.)

Moreover, in part because of injuries but also because of depth chart changes, only ten positions (left guard, center, tight end, fullback, left defensive end, nose tackle, “Jake” linebacker, both safeties, and right cornerback) have had the same starter for each game so far, and only twelve players (Duncan, Young, Mike Turkovich, John Sullivan, John Carlson, Trevor Laws, Pat Kuntz, John Ryan, Maurice Crum, David Bruton, Tom Zbikowski, and Terrail Lambert) have started at some position or other in every game so far. (Since they opened with three wide receiver sets, Asaph Schwapp wasn’t in on the opening plays against Michigan or BC, but perhaps he should count as number 13 on this list.)

(A more complete breakdown, both of game-by-game starting lineups and of depth chart changes, is available here. Note that I haven’t included any of the special teams positions, though there has also been considerable variability at punter, place-kicker, and on kickoffs.)

No matter how you spin it, that’s a lot of guys moving around. (For comparison’s sake, last year’s Irish team had sixteen players start in every one of their thirteen total games, not including Zbikowski, who sat out against Stanford with an injury.) And it’s easy to look at this situation and think that it reflects poorly on Charlie Weis and his staff: either they did a poor job of evaluating talent at the start of the season, or they’ve been doing too much shuffling around from week to week and so have kept the team from settling into a real rhythm, or whatever. But when we look more closely at where many of the changes have come, we see a different story.

Here are the cases where the need to make changes in the depth chart clearly wasn’t the fault of the coaching staff:

“X” receiver:George West was listed as the starter here at the beginning of the year, but now the true freshman Kamara, who was originally third-string behind West and D.J. Hord, has moved up to the #1 spot. This is clearly a matter of a player showing what he brings to the field and taking the job away from a more experienced guy who was legitimately ahead of him at the start of the year, not a case where talent was misevaluated in any way.

“Z” receiver: Parris is now listed ahead of Grimes for the #1 spot, but that may be in part a product of Grimes’s injury. In any case, Grimes’s solid play last year clearly earned him his early-season starting position, just as Parris’s play this season (second on the team in receptions with 19 and the first in receiving yardage by a long shot with 272) may have done the same for him at mid-season.

Right guard: Wenger was the starter here at the beginning of the year, but he suffered an injury against Michigan and hasn’t played since. (He should be back this week, though, and Weis has indicated that he’ll be the primary backup for all of the interior positions along the o-line.) Matt Carufel was Wenger’s replacement for three games until he was beaten out by Olsen last week - but once again, having a player perform surprisingly well at a “need” position (especially when he overtakes someone who was originally a backup) is hardly something a coach can be criticized for.

Right defensive end: Early season co-starters Justin Brown (who missed several games with an injury) and Dwight Stephenson Jr. started off dividing playing time between them, but Stephenson has now risen to the #1 spot. During one of the games when Brown was injured, Derrell Hand started in this position, and there have been others where the team started off in a nickle package and either Neal or John Ryan was listed as a defensive end.

Right outside linebacker: This is where Neal has been playing extremely well, and taken the starting job away from the once-again disappointing Vernaglia (who’s now listed as the backup to Crum at the “Jake” linebacker spot).

In other words, all of the above personnel shifts can be chalked up either to injury (Grimes, Wenger, Brown) or unexpectedly solid play from underclassmen who hadn’t seen much if any game action before (Kamara, Parris, Olsen, Neal), and so it would be wrong to blame the staff for them.

But that’s not to say that there aren’t some other positions where the coaching staff is arguably at least partly at fault for the fact that there was so much uncertainty through the early part of the season:

Running back: This one really is something of a head-scratcher, since it became clear to most fans that Travis Thomas wasn’t going to get the job done long before he stopped getting a significant number of carries, and even though he didn’t actually start after week one, it took until the Michigan State game in week four for Aldridge to take over that position instead of Armando Allen. Allen has shown himself to be a good change-of-pace back who has a chance to be a dynamic every-down player in the future, but he’s not there yet, and trying to work the offense around his speed instead of building around the skill and power of Aldridge was pretty clearly a bad decision. When the guy who is obviously your best running back is basically your third option for the first third the season, something seems to have gone wrong in decision-making.

Quarterback: It’s been argued - with considerable force, in my mind, though I don’t think Jimmy Clausen deserved to be pulled before this week - that Sharpley should have been named the starter at the beginning of the season, and that the team would have been better off in the long run if that had been the decision made. It seems clear enough in hindsight that the choice of Demetrius Jones as the starter against Georgia Tech was a disaster, and that the time spent practicing a spread-style offense would have been better used working on more traditional sets. If Clausen would in fact have been the starter if not for his elbow surgery, then replacing him with someone who would run the same type of offense may well have been the best bet. Once again, this seems to be a matter of the staff getting to “cute” with schemes and crafty personnel decisions rather than taking a more careful, “building-blocks” approach.

The offensive tackles:The two-game experiment with moving Sam Young to right tackle clearly didn’t go very well, though it’s not as if he’s been stellar since going back to his original position. But if Young is in fact that much more comfortable playing on the left side of the line, then there’s a natural argument that says he never should have been moved in the first place. [EDIT: See Matt's comment below. What I should have said was that the experiment with putting Duncan on the left side of the line and leaving Young on the right did not work well, though it's not as if the line has been airtight since they were switched back. But the need for a mid-season switch like this with relatively veteran players suggests that there were some mistakes made in preseason evaluations.]

The fact is that these four positions - tailback, quarterback, and the two exterior linemen - are obviously crucial to the success of a football team, and so if Weis and his staff did make bad decisions with how they managed them, then it’s very likely that that had adverse effects on the way the team played on the field, as well as on the overall progress the team was able to make, through the early part of the season. And while in each case the questionable decisions I’ve highlighted here were understandable, it seems reasonable to put some blame at the feet of the coaching staff if they really did mis-evaluate their talent in these kinds of ways.

But at the same time, looking at these position changes as a whole reveals two really positive things about the state of the Irish: first, that there are lots of talented underclassmen playing extraordinary football; second, that the coaching staff has continually been willing to put those players on the field and even in the starting lineups, no matter how much seniority may have been had by the players they were replacing. If we continue to see more personnel moves over the remainder of the season, it will probably be for these kinds of reasons rather than the more worrisome ones suggested in the second category above. This is an extremely young team, and it’s going to take everyone a while to settle in.

With the Southern Cal (yeah, that’s what I said) game just a few days away, there’s a bunch of news to cover regarding depth chart moves, injury updates, and the like. I’m going to run down the highlights position-by-position, but for the quick version, see the summary below:

Running backs: First-string tailback James Aldridge suffered a high ankle sprain against BC and is officially listed as “doubtful” for Saturday’s game, and Michael Rothstein quotesCharlie Weis as saying that while Aldridge “intends to play this week,” “the odds of that happening aren’t that high.” Given that all season even players who have been described as “probable,” “game-time decisions,” or even “ready to go” haven’t ended up playing much if at all (think David Grimes, Dan Wenger, and Maurice Crum last week), I’d say there’s just about no chance that Aldridge ends up seeing the field, which is really bad news for the Irish. With the injury to Aldridge, former co-#2’s Travis Thomas, Armando Allen, Junior Jabbie, and Robert Hughes are now listed as co-#1’s on the new depth chart, with Aldridge’s name in italics. Here’s what Weis said about this in his Tuesday press conference: “Well, I think what we would not do this week, since this is USC, is just throw Robert (Hughes) in and Armando (Allen) in there right off the bat. I think that we would go a little heavier with Travis (Thomas) being involved in this mix, too, more than he has this year. I think that that would be part of that combination. I’m not saying by committee, but I think that he would probably take off some of the pressure of James, and obviously Robert and Armando would be much more involved.”

Wide receivers: David Grimes didn’t play against BC, butWeis said in his Tuesday presser that it sounds like Grimes has “a legitimate chance of playing” in the Southern Cal game: he “was close to being able to go on Saturday (vs. Boston College), but it’s always tough when you haven’t practiced all week long to try to go when you haven’t had a meaningful rep in practice.” Meanwhile, as Rothstein notes in his excellent breakdown of this week’s depth chart changes, Grimes is now listed behind Robby Parris at the “Z” receiver slot, and fellow former #1 George West is now behind freshman Duval Kamara at the “X” position. Golden Tate, meanwhile, is still listed as third string for the “Z” slot, and Weis made a helpful clarification in his presser as to why Tate didn’t play much on offense against BC, saying that it wasn’t because of injury: “That was because we were going to play a significant amount of no huddle in the game, and in the no huddle our outside receivers do not flip flop positions, so they need to know both outside positions both as the weak side receiver and the strong side receiver. And really at his experience level, you want him to be able to play one position. Not (put him in a position) where he has to know both the X and the F and know both right and left. That was not the type of game that you want a guy with very little experience to be involved in.”

Offensive line: As I noted earlier, Dan Wenger sat out his fourth straight game last week with a leg injury. But when asked about Wenger’s health on Tuesday, Weis was unambiguous (for once): “He’s back. I think I would list Tom (Bemenderfer) down there [as the backup at right guard], but I think if I needed a backup inside, Danny (Wenger) would be the first backup inside at all three positions. I know I only list him at one. I list him (Wenger) as the backup center but he’d probably go in first at right guard and he’d probably go in first at left guard, as well.” On the new depth chart, Wenger is in fact listed as the backup to both John Sullivan at center and Eric Olsen at right guard, with Bemenderfer listed as Mike Turkovich’s backup at the left guard slot. Weis also noted that Chris Stewart, who saw the first game action of his career against BC, has been working both at right tackle and at right guard in practice, though the former position is his primary responsibility. Finally, Rothstein notes that Matt Romine, who’s missed several games with a right elbow injury, was wearing a “slightly less bulky” brace on Tuesday. He’s still probably a ways away from being back, though.

Linebackers: I also noted that Maurice Crum sat out the BC game, because of a turf toe injury he suffered against UCLA. Weis described Crum, like Grimes, as having a “legitimate chance” of playing against SC, noting that he “is walking without a limp this week, and that’s a good thing.” But both Rothstein and Ben Ford note in their reports from Tuesday’s practice that Crum looked a bit slow, so it’s perhaps reasonable to think that his status may be up in the air. The new depth chart, meanwhile, lists Anthony Vernaglia, who had been a starter at outside linebacker until last week but saw time at ILB against UCLA as well as BC, as Crum’s backup, with freshman Brian Smith taking over Vernaglia’s position from last week as the backup to John Ryan, and Morrice Richardson now in Smith’s old position as the backup to Kerry Neal.

Cornerbacks: Thankfully there’s no injury news to report here, but there has been a little bit of shifting on the depth chart: Darrin Walls is now listed as a co-#1 with Ambrose Wooden at the left cornerback spot, and at RCB, former tailback Munir Prince - who as I noted before the BC game has been seeing more playing time recently - is now listed as a co-#2 with Raeshon McNeil, behind Terrail Lambert.

Okay, that’s all. Here’s a quick summary for anyone who might have been overwhelmed by all that text:

James Aldridge is injured and probably won’t play against Southern Cal. Travis Thomas will play a key role backing him up, together with freshmen Robert Hughes and Armando Allen.

David Grimes will probably be back for the SC game, though he is now listed at second string behind Robby Parris. George West has also been bumped to second string, by freshman Duval Kamara. Golden Tate is not injured.

Dan Wenger is healthy and back on the offensive line, listed as a backup at two positions (center and right guard). Tom Bemenderfer is the backup at the other guard position.

Maurice Crum has reportedly looked a little slow in practice, so it’s fair to say that his status for Saturday may be uncertain. Anthony Vernaglia is now listed as his backup, with Brian Smith taking over Vernaglia’s spot from last week as the backup to John Ryan and Morrice Richardson taking Smith’s spot behind Kerry Neal.

Ambrose Wooden is now listed as a co-#1 with Darrin Walls at one cornerback slot, and Munir Prince as the co-#2 with Raeshon McNeil at the other.

That’s it! I’ll be back tomorrow with some analysis of the team’s depth along the offensive line, pre- and post- the departure of Matt Carufel.

Here are few updates on the Irish depth chart, and the health of ND’s various injured players, heading into this afternoon’s game against Boston College.

* * *

It was reported on the Web Thursday night, and yesterday the Chicago Tribune picked the story up: sophomore offensive lineman Matt Carufel, who started the past three games at right guard after classmate Dan Wenger went down with an injury and was listed to start again against Boston College, has been excused from the team for undisclosed personal reasons and will miss today’s game:

Irish guard Matt Carufel, who started the last three games, has returned home to Minnesota and is expected to decide on his future at Notre Dame by Sunday, the Tribune has learned.

Carufel has been excused from practices this week due to “personal reasons.” On Friday, Carufel was at his former high school in St. Paul, Cretin-Derham Hall, spoke extensively with assistant coach Andy Bishoff, and indicated that he may not return to the Irish.

“He’s struggling with if he’s going to stick around there or not,” Bishoff told the Tribune. “He just doesn’t know if he fit at Notre Dame like he thought he would.”

Carufel also could return to Notre Dame to finish out the semester. If Carufel decides not to return to the Irish, Bishoff said Minnesota and Iowa are two schools likely to be at the top of the list of potential destinations.

Apparently Carufel was absent from practice on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. His departure, together with the elbow injury (I am told it involves torn ligaments) that is going to keep freshman Matt Romine out for the foreseeable future and the obvious questions of whether Wenger’s leg is 100% healed, suddenly leaves the Irish almost paper-thin along the offensive line. Carufel’s backup on this week’s official depth chart (which I’ve already discussed at some length here) is fellow sophomore Eric Olsen, who had previously been listed behind Mike Turkovich on the other side of the line at left guard, and who has played in ever game except the loss to Michigan. Olsen saw the field by far the most of any of the backup offensive linemen through the first five games, so hopefully he’ll be ready to play.

But after that, the rest of the second string o-line consists of freshman Taylor Dever behind Sam Young at left tackle, junior transfer Thomas Bemenderfer behind Turkovich at left guard, Wenger behind fifth-year senior John Sullivan at center, and sophomore Chris Stewart behind Paul Duncan at right tackle. If Wenger is ready to go, it’s obviously not a stretch to see him splitting minutes with Olsen in Carufel’s place, since Sullivan essentially never leaves the field. Stewart and Dever, meanwhile, haven’t gotten into any games yet this year.

(It’s perhaps worth noting that the Notre Dame depth chart published in the South Bend Tribune this morning lists Stewart as the starter at right guard, with Olsen listed as backing up both Stewart and left guard Turkovich, and Bemenderfer as the backup center to Sullivan. Wenger, meanwhile, is completely absent from that chart, though Romine is listed as Duncan’s backup at right tackle. It’s hard to believe this chart is accurate, though, since there are also several other funny things about it, including Eric Maust listed ahead of Geoff Price as the team’s punter, and Anthony Vernaglia absent from the chart altogether.)

So obviously we’re not going to know for sure who’s going to play where until the game is underway, but I’d be surprised if what we see at the right guard position doesn’t primarily involve Olsen and/or Wenger, depending especially on the health of the latter (on which see below).

* * *

Up next, a couple of quick injury updates:

David Grimes, who ended up not dressing for the UCLA game because of an ankle injury suffered against Purdue, was back in practice this week, albeit with a heavily taped ankle. Watching Grimes on Wednesday, Ben Ford thought that he was “still having a little bit of trouble with the initial burst and explosion when he makes a break from a standing position.” Charlie Weis was quoted in Eric Hansen’s excellent column in today’s SBTrib as saying that Grimes hadn’t participated in any cutting drills this week, and that he would be a game-time decision, but that he “still doesn’t look full speed to me … If he doesn’t look close to full speed, then I just won’t play him.” My gut here says that we don’t see Grimes on the field today.

Meanwhile, I haven’t seen any reports of how Dan Wenger looked in practice this week, but an article from Wednesday’s SBTrib has this little nugget: “We’re finally getting him back on a more full-speed basis this week,” Weis said of Wenger. “He’s not automatically going to get thrown (into the right guard mix). He’s going to have to earn his way back out there.” It could be, in other words, is that the reason Wenger was made the backup to Sullivan on the depth chart for this week is that he’s not fully healthy, and less will be expected of him there because of how little Sullivan comes out of the game. But once again, I wouldn’t read into the fact that Wenger isn’t listed in the SBT depth chart, since they list Romine as a back-up, and Weis has said that he’s at least a few weeks away from returning.

* * *

Finally, one more personnel-related note. Pat at BGS noted earlier this week that sophomore Munir Prince, who was recruited as a tailback but made the switch to cornerback in the off-season, saw some playing time on defense against UCLA. A question in Michael Rothstein’s mailbag from this week picked up on this point:

I noticed late in the UCLA game when the Irish were on defense, Darrin Walls nor Raeshon McNeil were on the field. Is this because the Irish were running a prevent zone and those guys match up better in man-to-man, or did the coaches feel better with the more experienced dime lineup of (Terrail) Lambert, (Leo) Ferrine, (Ambrose) Wooden, (David) Bruton, Zibby but then there was (Munir) Prince, what gives? Thanks.
-Pete McLoughlin

Pete,
Honestly, we’re not sure. From the television view we had, we didn’t even notice the shift in this package and who was in. What we can tell you is we noticed Prince in the game a lot. It shows more than anything that the sophomore is finally adjusted to his move to cornerback. As for that package, we’ll take a good look this week when we’re back on site for games.

Anyway, just thought that was worth noting. That’s great for Munir, and hopefully he’ll continue to get on the field and play well the rest of the season.

[UPDATE: The always-insightful OCDomer has this to say, over at NDLNA:

I noticed Munir in at corner for stretches against UCLA. It seemed he was man-up on UCLA's best wide-out. Coach Weis has always said Munir was very fast. If he has developed his footwork at DB to the point that he is trusted to cover the fastest receivers on the other team, that's awesome. It means we shouldn't see the other team's speed burner running wide open down the field any more. It's also great for Munir. He's obviously been working very hard to learn the new position - hats off to him!

As Michael Rothstein noted yesterday, the latest version of ND’s official depth chart is out, and it’s different in some pretty significant ways from previous installments. Rothstein does a good job of noting the major changes, but I thought it was worth looking in a bit more depth at who’s moved where, and also relating these changes to some of Charlie Weis’s remarks from his Tuesday press conference.

What this means: I noted last week that there were reports that Aldridge had been made the official #1 tailback, but this is the first time I’ve seen it reflected in the depth chart. This is also a sort of a promotion for Hughes, who had been listed behind each of the other four backs in previous depth charts. While the Irish will certainly continue to change personnel in their backfield, it’s likely that a bit more consistency will help this team to establish a real offensive identity.

What this means: There’s actually no change here, though some may be surprised to see Tate still listed so far down. Weis was asked about this in his press conference today, and he said that Tate “got dinged a little bit in the [UCLA] game. He got knocked in the head a little bit.” But he insisted that Golden “will be involved in this mix right here.”

Center:John Sullivan / Dan Wenger

What this means: Wenger, who had been the starter at the right guard position earlier in the season, has been out the past few weeks with an injury suffered against Michigan, but he did travel to Pasadena and was supposed to be available, though he didn’t end up playing. Weis said in his press conference today that Wenger “hasn’t practiced that many reps full speed yet,” and that he won’t “just automatically get thrown in there” until he’s completely ready to go. The position switch could be simply a matter of putting him behind a more experienced player so that less is demanded of him, but it’s hard to know for sure.

Left Guard:Mike Turkovich / Thomas Bemenderfer

What this means: Bemenderfer had been listed as the backup center behind Sullivan, so this is a position switch of sorts for him, though he hadn’t seen more than a couple minutes of playing time in the first five games according to Lou Somogyi’s breakdown from last week. Once again, it’s hard to know whether it’s permanent.

Right Guard:Matt Carufel / Eric Olsen

What this means: I’ve already noted that Ben Ford wrote something last week about how Carufel didn’t want to give Wenger his starting position back, and it’s possible that he’s succeeded there. Meanwhile, Olsen had been the backup to Turkovich at left guard, so this is a switch for him, and a strong indication that Turk has managed to hold on to his position.

Right Tackle:Paul Duncan / Chris Stewart

What this means:Matt Romine had been listed as the backup to Duncan a few weeks back, but now he doesn’t appear on the depth chart at all, and Weis said in his press conference today that his elbow injury is “a little ways away” from being sufficiently healed, and that “I don’t expect to see him any time soon.” Stewart, meanwhile, had previously been listed as the backup to Matt Carufel at the right guard position.

Left Defensive End:Trevor Laws / Derrell Hand OR Paddy Mullen

What this means: Hand had been listed as the third-string right defensive end, so this is a minor position switch for him. Mullen, meanwhile, had been listed as Laws’s sole backup but had only seen a few minutes of playing time. Bringing Hand over to help the sophomore out might mean that Laws will be able to take a few more breathers, though Weis also indicated (see below) that Justin Brown might be the first off the bench to spell Laws.

Right Defensive End:Dwight Stephenson Jr. / Justin Brown

What this means: Brown and Stephenson had been listed as co-#1’s before, and when Brown went down with an injury Stephenson didn’t always start in his place. Stephenson did start last week, but Weis said in his press conference today that Brown could be in the game for either Stephenson or Trevor Laws, and that he’ll “go in first,” before Hand or Mullen.

What this means: With the freshman Neal starting, senior Anthony Vernaglia is now a backup at the other OLB spot (see below). This is a big move for Neal, who’s played really well the last few weeks but of whom Weis said after the Michigan State game that he wasn’t ready to play consistently against the run. Weis said in his press conference today that Neal has “a bigger body than some of those other guys, and he’s more of a — he’s not as tall as John — but he’s more of a John Ryan type of player. So it kind of gives you — when those two guys are out there — it gives you more of a mirrored look on the right side and the left side.”

Left Outside Linebacker: John Ryan / Anthony Vernaglia

What this means: When asked why Vernaglia played at inside linebacker against UCLA, Weis said that this was done “out of need,” but that “this week he’s going to practice at both inside and outside. He’ll be listed at one (position on the depth chart). I think I put him as the backup Sam behind John Ryan. I think that’s where I put him, as the best backup left outside linebacker, but he’ll practice at both inside and outside this week.” We’ll see how much this ends up affecting Vernaglia’s playing time, but it’s clearly hard to see it as anything but a demotion for a player who has only thirteen total tackles on the season.

Strong Safety:Tom Zbikowski / Sergio Brown / Ray Herring

What this means: Herring had been ahead of Brown on the depth chart before, but Zbikowski rarely comes off the field except to bring in an extra cornerback, and so it’s hard to see this as a very big deal. (By Somogyi’s count, Herring had played a total of 6:23 at safety through the first five games, and the game participation statistics don’t show him as having played at all the past two weeks, even on special teams.) It’s perhaps worth noting, though, that there had been some whispers that Brown might be unhappy with his roles on the team and thinking of leaving, so the fact that he’s moved up on the depth chart may make him feel a bit better about his future.

Place-Kicker:Brandon Walker / Nate Whitaker

What this means: After he won the kicking competition this past week and hit two field goals, including a 48-yarder, against UCLA, there was little doubt that Walker would be ND’s placekicker for the foreseeable future. Whitaker will still handle kickoffs, though.

Punter:Geoff Price / Eric Maust

What this means: Maust replaced Price in the Michigan State game and handled the punts against Purdue, but Price returned last week and had a strong game. Weis said today that Price’s biggest problem has been with inconsistency:

We all know that he’s got the leg that can hit the ball 70 yards. But when you go out in the game and hit two or three crummy ones and then drop a snap on top of it, at that position you can’t hide.

I never call a player out, but there’s certain positions, the quarterback throws three interceptions, everybody in the stands sees it. An offensive lineman misses three blocks, you might not see it, depending on what happened on the play. But when a punter is out there and the ball goes 25 or 30 yards, it’s tough to hide that.

But I think that he’s really working on his consistency. I think that last week with the exception of one kick that he didn’t hit very well, I think that he kicked — he punted nine times and I think he had a very, very good day.

Hopefully Price can return to the consistently excellent performance we saw in 2006 that made him a preseason All-American candidate this year.

Anyway, that’s all I see for now. I’ll try to find some time tomorrow to write something about BC.

As promised, here’s a quick update on some of what’s going on around the ND football universe as the Irish prepare to take on UCLA tomorrow evening.

Uncontroversial

First up, the quarterback situation. Despite the best efforts of certain individuals to argue that Jimmy Clausen should be benched despite completing 18 of 26 passes for 169 yards and a touchdown against Purdue, ND head coach Charlie Weis never wavered on his statement from earlier in the week that Clausen would be the starter unless he was injured. In fact, he never even let it become an issue: while Ben Ford mentions casually in his blog post about Wednesday’s practice that “Clausen will be your starter against the Bruins,” a quick scan of the news coverage leading up to the game shows how much of a non-story this “controversy” turned out to be. In my mind, this was a good decision by Weis: he never made a dramatic announcement in a press conference, but just let things play out on the practice field.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning, though, that Ford also reported on Wednesday that backup Evan Sharpley “is taking more reps in practice than usual this week,” reps which Weis said Sharpley had “earned” based on his performance against Purdue. But both Ford and Michael Rothstein also commented that Clausen looked perfectly healthy by mid-week, and that he was throwing on the run without any of the problems you’d expect from someone still bothered by a hip injury.

Injury worries

One worrisome storyline for the Irish over the past few weeks has been the spate of injuries that have hit the team. Here’s an update on how various players are doing:

As mentioned above, the hip injury that Jimmy Clausen suffered against Purdue seems to have healed completely, though Michael Rothstein does mention that he had to take more steps than Evan Sharpley did to throw the ball back during warmups. Whether this is related to his off-season elbow surgery is unclear.

Junior wide receiver David Grimes, who injured his ankle last Saturday against Purdue, apparently may have taken a few reps during practice on Thursday, and he will accompany the team to Pasadena, but it’s unclear how much he’ll play and whether he can make much of an impact if he does. [UPDATE: BGS quotes a Scout.com article in which Weis says that the staff's decision on Grimes "will go right to Saturday. He’s looked better every day, but he hasn’t gotten meaningful reps in practice all week long. He’s come out late every day because he’s been in there getting treatment."]

Sophomore offensive guard Dan Wenger, who was the starter at the beginning of the season until he injured his leg against Michigan, is reportedly “ready to play” for Saturday’s game. But Ford notes that he was still “moving slowly” on Tuesday, so once again it’s unclear how much he’ll be able to bring. Ford also has a great little piece on Wenger and his replacement, fellow sophomore Matt Carufel, who apparently doesn’t want to give the starting job back now that he’s gotten it.

Senior defensive end Justin Brown, who also missed the past two games due to injury, was back in practice on Tuesday and reportedly ran laterally - albeit “gingerly”- with the team, which was something he hadn’t been able to do last week. According to Ford, Brown is a “go” for Saturday’s game.

No official word, though, on the status of freshman offensive tackle Matt Romine, who was also a scratch for last Saturday’s game due to an arm injury.

Notes on the depth chart

Finally, a couple of remarks on Notre Dame’s depth chart for Saturday’s game. While the online chart hasn’t changed since last week, Weis made it clear after the Purdue game that Eric Maust has now replaced Geoff Price as the team’s first-string punter. Maust has averaged 43.7 yards on his seven punts so far this season.

More interesting, though, is the report from the Gary Post-Tribune that sophomore James Aldridge is now Notre Dame’s official #1 running back. There had been little doubt that this was so the past couple of weeks, but the official depth chart still listed him together with Travis Thomas, Armando Allen, and Junior Jabbie as co-#1’s. Once again, this change isn’t reflected in the chart at UND.com, but it does seem to be official. (HT: IrishTat.)

That’s all for now! I might be back tomorrow morning with some gameday notes.

I promised on Thursday that I’d run down anything interesting to do with ND’s depth chart, so here goes:

At the right guard position, Chris Stewart and Dan Wenger are listed as the two backups to Matt Carufel. This is no change from last week, but what’s notable is that both Stewart and Wenger are going to be missing this weekend.

As I noted on Thursday, with the departure of Konrad Reuland, freshman Mike Ragone is now the official third-string tight end. There were some reports from the MSU game that Ragone was seeing the field ahead of Reuland anyway, though, so this isn’t a huge deal.

Derrell Hand, who started last week when Justin Brown was out with an injury, is still listed as the #3 LDE, behind co-#1’s Brown and Dwight Stephenson, Jr.

Other than that, there’s not much doing there.

A quick update on the injury front, though: as I mentioned earlier this week, Charlie Weis has said that Dan Wenger, who has a left leg injury, will definitely miss today’s game, and will be back by next Saturday at the earliest. Meanwhile, Justin Brown, who sat out against MSU and reportedly still looked a bit hobbled in practice this week, is going to be a game-time decision today.
Also worth noting: the South Bend Tribune managed to get in touch with Chris Stewart on Friday, and here’s what he had to say:

I’m trying to be careful not to say too much right now, because everything’s up in the air. I’m just trying to figure everything out first and then move forward.

Clearly a good sign for fans who’d like to see the young man return to the team. The official ND position is that Stewart has left the team for “personal reasons,” with Weis’s blessing.

Meanwhile, I know it doesn’t quite count as Notre Dame news, but I thought it was worth sharing this snippet from a USA Today profile of Cal-Berkeley superstar running back Justin Forsett:

For Justin Forsett, February 2004 arrived with no place to sign on the dotted line.The 5-8 running back assumed he was headed to Notre Dame, but the Irish offered scholarships to two bigger running backs. Which was news to him.

It would be easy to say Forsett, now a senior at California, had the last laugh. Notre Dame is 0-4. The school where he landed is 4-0. But holding grudges isn’t Forsett’s nature.

“It was a tremendous blessing for me to end up where I am,” he says. “At the time I couldn’t see it. I didn’t know where I’d be after Notre Dame turned me down, and it definitely hurt. But God works in mysterious ways, and there couldn’t be a better place than here.”

So how did Forsett get from nowhere to here? From castoff to Cal’s most valuable player so far as the No. 6 Golden Bears head into Saturday’s critical game at No. 12 Oregon?

Before signing day in 2004, Notre Dame’s running backs coach at the time, Buzz Preston, visited Forsett and his father, Rodney, and mother, Abby, at his high school, Grace Prep in Arlington, Texas. According to the Forsetts, Preston said Notre Dame would have a scholarship for him.

“We left the meeting feeling wonderful because we were on our way to Notre Dame,” says Rodney, a minister.

About a week before signing day, Justin called Notre Dame, then coached by Tyrone Willingham. “I hadn’t heard from them in a while,” he says. “They told me they didn’t need me anymore.”

Preston, now at New Mexico, says the Irish never offered Forsett a scholarship. It wasn’t for lack of ability; the Irish simply were looking for taller backs.

This much was certain: Forsett was blindsided by the news. “Forsett loses lone offer,” read the headline on the Rivals.com recruiting site on Jan. 28, 2004.

After signing day passed, Forsett’s high school coach, Mike Barber, a former NFL player, feverishly sent more highlight tapes to coaches around the country. None of the schools in Texas or Florida, where Forsett played his first two years of high school football, were interested. “Nothing. Nobody. Even Baylor didn’t want him,” Rodney says. South Carolina State was an option, but Forsett’s goal was to play Division I-A.

Forsett’s highlight tape landed at Cal.

“We watched his tape and thought this is too good to be true,” coach Jeff Tedford says. “There’s got to be something wrong with this kid. There’s a skeleton in the closet somewhere. So we thoroughly investigated everything about him and brought him here with his father, and he’s the greatest kid you ever want to meet.”

(snip)

When needed the most, Forsett has shined. In Cal’s opening win against Tennessee, Forsett ran for 156 yards on 26 carries. Last week against Arizona, Cal’s offense stalled when Forsett was nursing ankle and quadriceps soreness. After the Wildcats scored 17 unanswered points, Forsett lobbied to go back in and led the Bears on their final touchdown drive.

Forsett is the Pacific-10’s second-leading rusher (121.0 yards a game), behind only Oregon’s Jonathan Stewart (125.8). He’s also tied for the conference lead with seven touchdowns. “He’s been a guy who’s carried the load for us so far,” Tedford says.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but if what Forsett says is true, then it’s appalling: not just because an offer was pulled from a kid who’s turned out to be this talented, but because of the incredibly shady way in which it was done. Next time somebody starts telling you about Willingham’s classiness, make sure to bust this one out.

Oh, and next time you see Junior Jabbie or Travis Thomas get dragged down for a loss, remind yourself that at least they’re tall.

Finally, a quick thought on today’s game.Earlier this week I argued that the key to beating Purdue is running the ball effectively. I think this was only half right: the other crucial component if the Irish have any hope of winning is stopping the pass. This BGS post talks about the improvement of Purdue QB Curtis Painter from last year - when he led the nation in interceptions - to this. When I first read it, I thought that his improved numbers - 68.7% completions, 16 TDs, and only one interception through four games this year - might be due to Purdue’s weak schedule, but a bit more research proved that wrong: at this point last year, with an equally woeful foursome of opponents to start the year, Painter had thrown only 8 TD’s and had been picked off five times. Make no mistake about it: the Irish are going up against a good QB tomorrow, and a downright scary offense.Notre Dame fans are fond of pointing out that the team ranks eleventh in the nation in pass defense so far this year, but that statistic is a bit misleading, especially given both (1) the ease with which teams have run the ball against the Irish and (2) the degree to which these first four games have been blowouts. And as the South Bend Tribune pointed out today, when we consider pass efficiency defense, the Irish rank only 52nd nationally. The opening drive of the second half against Michigan State, which saw the Spartans convert through the air on 3rd-and-9 and 3rd-and-17 and then for a sixteen-yard touchdown, was a case in point of ND’s struggles against the pass this year. Ryan Mallett threw for three touchdowns against ND two weeks ago, and MSU scored four through the air last week. Tomorrow’s game will be a huge indicator of whether first-year defensive coordinator Corwin Brown is making progress with this team. Expect to see plenty of frosh LB’s Brian Smith and Kerry Neal (profiled in today’s SBT, by the way), who played well in passing situations against the Spartans, but - according to Charlie Weis in his Sunday press conference - aren’t quite ready to play consistently against the run.No matter how effectively ND runs the ball today, unless the Irish can hold Painter to no more than three TD’s passing and perhaps pick off a pass, Purdue will almost certainly win going away.
With that happy thought in mind, though, let’s take a look back into the history of the Notre Dame-Purdue series, courtesy of YouTube …[NOTE: For some reason, I've been having trouble embedding YouTube clips since we switched the site over from Blogger, so I'm just providing links for now.]We begin in 1964, Ara Parseghian’s first year as head coach of the Irish, as John Huarte leads the Fighting Irish past Bob Griese’s Boilermakers. (You can see a copy of the program here.) Notre Dame would go on to go 9-1-0 that year, their only loss coming at the hands of the USC Trojans. Lindsey Nelson has the call here.Next up is 1966, the year the Irish won their first national title under Parseghian. This game - a picture of the program is here - started off well for the Boilermakers, as Leroy Keyes returned an interception for a touchdown. But on the ensuing kickoff, Notre Dame’s Nick Eddytook one of his own to the house.This game also saw the famous duo of QB Terry Hanratty and wideout Jim Seymour, whom Time magazine would call “the hottest young passing combination in the US,” hook up for three long passes, all shown here.Up next is 1973, with highlights from West Lafayette. Notre Dame would go on to win the national title that year as well, under head coach Dan Devine.

Four years later, in 1977, a young Joe Montana would come off the bench to lead the Irish to victory in what would be yet another National Championship season.

The next three clips - from 1999, 2003, and 2004 respectively - remind anyone who may have forgotten why Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham were fired. Ugh. I was there for that last one, and I think it is burned into my retinas for eternity. Ugh.

We can end on a positive note, though, with highlights from the lastcouple of years.

Anyway, enough messing around on the web. Time to start some proper pre-gaming.

According to both Ben Ford and Michael Rothstein, Irish offensive lineman Dan Wenger was absent from practice once again on Tuesday. Wenger suffered an undisclosed injury and has reportedly been seen around campus with a cast on his leg. ND head coach Charlie Weis didn’t address this in his press conference on Tuesday, but he did say on Sunday that Matt Carufel looked “decent” playing in Wenger’s place against Michigan State.

Another worrisome bit of news on the injury front comes from Rothstein’s remarks on Justin Brown, who as noted earlier missed the MSU game with an injury:

Defensive end Justin Brown stretched with a trainer again and when the rest of the linemen were doing drills, he was off to the side, clearly hobbled. If we were to guess, we wouldn’t think he’ll be ready for Saturday, but it is still early in the week.

Weis said on Sunday that sitting Brown was a “game time decision,” and that he’d be “able to go” in practice that day. ND is far too cagey about things like this to think we’ll know anything about Brown’s status before the Irish take the field against Purdue.

One other notable thing from Tuesday’s practice reports is that, as Ford notes, it was “extremely physical at the start,” much as it reportedly was through all of last week. Weis spoke to this issue in his press conference on Tuesday, saying that they planned to find a sort of middle ground this week:

Q. Could you kind of outline your practice week in terms of compared to what you tried last week and what you did last week?

COACH WEIS: We still have to have elements of last week in there, because I think last week helped us — what we did last week helped us in the game. So today the first half of practice is going to be dedicated to ones versus ones, full speed, take them to the ground. What I didn’t do was I didn’t do full speed, take them to the ground on Sunday, because I had a bunch of guys beat up. So it becomes counter productive. You have to be objective, too. And you want to be tough, and you want to have a mentality at the same time you want to be intelligent and not do something stupid.

So today, they all know that we’re going ones against ones and it will be the first hour of practice. Then we’ll have a break and we’ll practice special teams. And then after that break, the rest of the practice will be dedicated to Purdue first and second down.

Q. From that point, it’s kind of Purdue the rest of the way?

COACH WEIS: I think it will be a little bit closer to a normal schedule come tomorrow [i.e., Wednesday].

Most of the press conference, as well as what’s been said about practices so far this week, has been pretty standard stuff.

One other bit of news worth noting, though: according to the Chicago Sun-Times, former Irish QB Demetrius Jones has had a brief telephone conversation with Northern Illinois football coach Joe Novak, but he hasn’t been practicing with the Huskies football team and in fact isn’t even enrolled at NIU:

”The last I heard, he’s not [enrolled],” Novak said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. ”He has got a lot of things available to him.”

Jones was listed in NIU’s online student directory two weeks ago, then wasn’t listed last week. To transfer directly from Notre Dame to NIU and be eligible to play in 2008, he would have to have been enrolled by the 12th day of classes (Sept. 12) for this semester to count toward the year he would have to sit out.

He does have the option of enrolling in a school, such as Northwestern or Ohio State, that uses the quarter system and started fall classes this week.

A source familiar with the situation said Jones might have another option to be eligible to play for the Huskies next fall. The source said Jones has accumulated 40 credit hours at Notre Dame and could earn an associate’s degree at a junior college by completing 20 hours by the end of next summer, then enroll at NIU.

This is a bit puzzling, since as the Sun-Times notes it contradicts much of what has been said in the media. It is unclear whether this has anything to do with ND’s refusal to release Jones from his scholarship to play for NIU. Look for more details to come out on this soon.

The transcript is now up from Charlie Weis’s press conference on Sunday, Sept. 23. Here are some of the key points.

On the status of Justin Brown, who sat out Saturday’s game:“Justin is going to be able to go today [i.e., in Sunday's practice]. That was a game time decision where we just didn’t feel — he had rolled his ankle a little bit earlier in practice, earlier in the week, and it was a day to day type of thing where we weren’t really sure whether or not he could go or not. But even right to game day, he just didn’t feel that he could just push off enough on that day. It was close. It was close to him being able to go on Saturday, but according to both Justin and Jim (Russ, head trainer), he’ll be back and ready to go. That’s the answer to Justin.”

On Geoff Price’s struggles:“It was a tough day at the office. He’s not bothered by an injury.”

On freshmen linebackers Kerry Neal and Brian Smith, who played a lot in passing situations, and whether they’ll see the field more on run downs:

“[They're] spotty on run downs. I see them being in the two deep on run downs. I don’t think that right now they’re ready to be prime time every down players, but I think their progress has grown at a much higher pace than a lot of other people. One thing they’ve both shown is they can get after the passer. We definitely needed some edge pressure, which both those guys provide. And then different roles, I think they not only played themselves into the two deep on regular defense but put themselves close to being on the field on a more regular basis.”

On problems with kick coverage:

“The first thing that’s got to happen is we’ve got to kick it better. That helps. Once you kick it better, the guys that are in one on one situations, which when you go back and watch it, you’re going to see some guys unblocked at the point right there to make a tackle that are unblocked. I mean, when you have an opportunity to make a play, you’ve got to make a play.”

On Jimmy Clausen:

“Well, the two things that he does the best is he can read coverages and he can make every throw. They’re the two things he can do, okay. Now, at this point, for example, and we had this conversation this week, at this point in his career what he’s doing is calling plays in the huddle more than running the offense. … And this is part of the evolution of a quarterback. When they first start playing early in their career, they relay the plays from the sideline to the guys in the huddle and then go to the line of scrimmage and run the play. That will grow while he’s here, okay, from calling the plays to running the offense, and that is a natural transition that takes place over time. With any quarterback that’s when everything changes.”

On Matt Carufel, who made his first career start:

“… he was decent. We were pretty good at the point of attack with the straight on physical stuff. Where we had a little bit more problem is with movement, you know, and I know you’ll go back and watch it the way I do, but you’ll see movement creating some more problems than just lining up. When we were just lining up smacking people in the mouth, I thought he held up fine.”

Another topic that figured prominently in the discussion today was the level of emotion that the team showed in the locker room after the loss. This was a big area of concern for many fans, given the rumors that started to circulate after the loss to Michigan that the ND players may have given up caring. But according to Coach Weis, this is far from the case. Here are some of the highlights of what he said:

I think probably the thing that encouraged me the most of anything was how many people in the locker room after the game showed obvious emotion on the outcome of the game. It’s probably the first time this year that I saw so many players that were moved by the game, and that is, more than anything else, the one thing that people don’t get a chance to see, and it’s probably the greatest reason for optimism — how much they really care.

When asked to give an example of what he meant by this, Weis replied:

Well, when you go in there and you’re talking to the team after game time, I think one of the things you have to do is make sure that you don’t tear them down because you already know they’re feeling bad. But when you look in guys’ — look in some of their faces and you see them to the point where — not losing it but like where it’s that important to them, where you look in their face and it’s that important to them, that’s when you know they’re the type of players you want playing on your team. And sometimes it’s one guy, sometimes it was two guys, but there was a bunch of them yesterday that looked like that. That is a very, very strong positive when it’s that important to that many people.

And again:

As I said to them in the locker room after the game, I said, “fellows, you’re either all in or all out, it’s one or the other. The boat is going to sail with or without you. It’s okay if you want to be out, but you’re either all in or all out.” And I’d say for the majority of the people, the majority of the people were all in.

When asked whether this last remark meant that there was also a minority that was “all out,” Weis replied:

Those people I don’t know yet. You don’t know the answer to that question yet because when you’re looking at 100 guys, you can’t read everybody. I mean, you’re trying to, but I’m not a mind reader, I can’t read everybody. But you can see — what you can see, you can see the guys that are undeniably all in.

Weis also said that it seemed to be specifically the “older guys” who were showing the most emotion. There’s no question in my mind that this is a good sign.

So where do the Irish go from here? One thing Weis made clear is that he has no plans to abandon the “simple is better” strategy that the offense employed this past week:

Q. You talked last week about creating a niche. At least in the running game it looked like you made some good progress in that. Have you made enough where you feel like you can start getting creative and throwing in some more stuff?

COACH WEIS: Oh, I think that you — let’s not get to that creative (and) throw in too much more stuff. I think you have to put in breakers now. In other words, you can’t just say, “okay, here’s the handful of plays you ran last week. Let’s run the exact same plays the exact same way the next week.” Those coaches, they get the tape. They are not going to say “let’s run the exact same plays the exact same way.” I think you have to add on to it.

But I’m not trying to go overboard in anything we’re doing. I’m trying to grow this. I say we’re going to start with a core and go from there, and that’s what we’re doing. We established a core and we’re going to kind of grow from there.

Weis also said that while he didn’t think that this week’s extra-physical, “back to training camp” practices led to fatigue in the second half, he planned to cut things back a bit this week:

I think it’s important to make sure we work on being physical on both sides of the ball. The only way we can do that is ones against ones, which we’ll be doing elements of that this week. Now, we will not do as drastic as it was last week because you also don’t want to physically beat up your team. So there’s the fine line in there of working on being physical and tackling and taking to the ground, which we will do, and at the same time protecting your team and getting them ready to play Purdue.

He

also said that this week, unlike last week, the coaching staff and players will sit down at watch game tape:

One of the things we’re going to do different than last week — last week we didn’t watch the tape. So this week we are going to watch the tape because there’s plenty of — unlike last week, especially on offense, there wasn’t anything good to say. Now we can sit here and say, “hey, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good. Okay, now, this is bad, this is bad, this is bad.” So you can differentiate the two.

And then we go out to practice and we’ll go ahead and work and clean up all the things that were bad, make sure we — not only do we see them visually but we go out and try to rectify them and then you can move on. Where last week when you went right into training camp, you weren’t even worrying about Michigan. You weren’t really worrying about Michigan State. We were just worried about ourselves.

But now this week is a little different because we get a chance to go back and correct — correct both visually and on the field what our problems were yesterday and then move on from there.

All in all, Weis said it was the “first time in a while” where a game left him with “several things I can walk out … feeling good about.” But at this point, all eyes are fixed on the future: “right now,” said Weis, “we’re trying to beat Purdue.”

After this week’s free-for-all there were a few changes to ND’s depth chart, but nothing really major. Here’s a rundown, in what I take to be approximate order of significance and/or surprisingness.

Dan Wenger’s undisclosed injury has him out for at least this week, with Matt Carufel starting in his place at RG and human planetChris Stewart as the backup.

Duval Kamara has moved ahead of D.J. Hord for the #2 “X” receiver spot, with George West still the #1. Grimes, Parris, Gallup, and Tate are listed in the “Z” spot, in that order. Sorry Tate fans, looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer.

Just like last week, Sam Young will be starting at LT rather than RT, with Taylor Dever as his backup. The Paul Duncan-Matt Romine combination is at RT, with Duncan still the #1, for now anyway. Mike Turkovich is still the starter at LG, with Eric Olsen behind him.

Kerry Neal is now the #2 LOLB. Morrice Richardson, who had been the #2 there, moves to ROLB, where Neal had been the co-#2, but Richardson is #3 behind #1 Anthony Vernaglia and #2 Brian Smith.

The depth chart now lists Travis Thomas, James Aldridge, Armando Allen, and Junior Jabbie as all tied for the #1 RB spot, with Robert Hughes behind them. In week one, Thomas was listed as the lone starter.

And of course, Jimmy Clausen is our #1 QB, with Evan Sharpley listed as his lone backup.

Everything else seems to be the same as it was in week one. Ben Ford has some more thoughts here - they are worth reading, as always.

Q. Not a lot of change in the depth chart. Did that mean the starters all showed you something this week?

COACH WEIS: The most important thing for us was not to create sacrificial lambs. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be quick hooks in some cases, okay? But if I all of a sudden start pulling people and say, `”this guy is going to start, this guy is going to start,” the obvious thing that goes with it is, “well, it’s their fault.” I think we’re all part of the problem. I think there’s a lot more bodies that you might see show up in the game this week.

Q. The physical practices, I would think, would lend themselves for some players to look better than others just based on their style of play being more physical. I would think James Aldridge is a back that this is a week where it would be a chance for him to shine.

COACH WEIS: This is a James Aldridge-type of week. That’s exactly right. I would expect to see James early and often.

Q. How has he relished this opportunity? Do you see him as a guy that knows this is his chance to step up and do something?

COACH WEIS: He knows that he’s going to get plenty of opportunity. That’s what he knows. So I would imagine he’s very excited.

And finally, a couple of questions about our kickoff returns, where Armando Allen has been notably absent the past couple of weeks:

Q. Armando Allen no longer returning kicks?

COACH WEIS: He might be back there some returning kicks. Most of these kickers kick it to one spot, like this guy usually kicks it to one spot. Golden (Tate) will get the brunt of it. And with Junior (Jabbie) back there, Junior is a good returner, but he’s also a very good blocker. So if you’re going to feature one guy, we’d rather not Golden or Armando be the lead blocker. We’d rather them be the guy with the ball in their hands.

Q. Do you always want to have one blocker?

COACH WEIS: No, you want two returners if the guy sprays the ball all over the place because you would like two equally good returners. I think with Armando and Golden, we have two guys that are explosive returners. If a guy is going to hit the ball one spot all the time, that’s when you use a returner back there with better blocking ability.